The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was created under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970s. The Act was created to ensure as much as possible that working men and women were provided a safe and healthful working environment. The Department of Safety Sciences strives to produce industrial hygiene graduates with a passion for supporting the original and still most important responsibility for NIOSH, protecting the health and safety of the nation's workforce. [unreadable] [unreadable] The Department of Safety Sciences is committed to producing Industrial hygiene graduates who are in high demand by employers regionally, nationally and internationally. We continue to stress practitioner skills for all of our students. This is in keeping with the current demand by employers. At the same time we are also committed to increasing the research activities by our students. This isin keeping with the comments and instructions received from NIOSH. [unreadable] [unreadable] Our industrial hygiene faculty members have research interests in a variety of areas including academic program assessment, skills and competencies needed for entry level industrial hygienists, chemical contamination of household dust, field sampler variability, indoor air quality, weapons of mass destruction, retrospective exposure assessment, and the effect of pH on the absorption of manganese II ions through the EpiDerm TM skin models using atomic absorption spectroscopy. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]